Jet Fuel in a Moped! - Read last paragraph

Copyright 2000 Newsweek


April 24, 2000, Atlantic Edition


LENGTH: 1437 words

HEADLINE: Unfinished Business

BYLINE: By Tony Emerson; With Christopher Dickey and Paul Cochrane in Paris, Stefan Theil in Berlin, William Underhill in London and bureau reports


The continent might have clean rivers now#151;but don't breathe too deeply in Athens or Rome


Naturally, Europe welcomes the return of the fish. Thirty years ago its mightiest rivers were putrid with sewage and sludge, and few fish could survive the stew. Now, after a long cleanup effort, prized species are returning to waterways like the Elbe and the Rhine. But it is too early for fishermen. Once again there are salmon in the Rhine, Europe's busiest river, but the catch is still too toxic to eat.

The pretty, poison fish is an apt symbol of the times. The Green uprising that started in the 1970s forced European governments to clean up the most obnoxious messes, like stinking rivers and smokestack industries. But the movement has since stagnated, leaving problems that can be harder to spot and to solve. Earth Day was never big in Europe, and at this rate it never will be. A recent report, "Environment in Europe at the Turn of the Century," found a "general failure" to act against looming threats, including chemicals and greenhouse gases. If the "obvious" stink from leaded gas has been addressed in recent years, "the more hidden impacts are still not being recognized--like pollutants in the soil," says Gordon McInnes, a program manager at the European Environment Agency in Copenhagen, which authored the report. And problems out of sight are off the agenda. At the moment, says McInnes, the environment is just "not a major political issue."

The illusion that all is environmentally well is perhaps most powerful in Germany, where the Greens are in the government and politicians can take much credit for cleaning up the toxic wasteland that was East Germany. The eastern smokestacks, strip mines and mercury deposits have been scrubbed to meet rising standards in the West. Yet many critics attribute cleaner air and water in Germany less to the 15 billion cleanup than to the collapse of the communist industrial machine. And much remains to be done. "Thirty years ago the problems were obvious and visible: toxic foam floating in rivers, black clouds in the sky, dead trees in the forest," says Karsten Klenner, spokesman for the Federal Environmental Bureau in Berlin. "Today we're dealing with much more complex and often invisible problems, like climate change, organic toxins or traffic growth."

Different countries may have slightly different environmental concerns, but one sentiment spans the EU: Europeans want a greener society, but not at the expense of faster growth. Efforts to promote recycling have failed to halt the growing output of glass and plastic rubbish, according to the EEA report. Success in cutting smoke from factories has been more than offset by increasing exhaust from cars and trucks. In its state-of-the-environment survey, the EEA found that with the exception of successful efforts to cut ozone-depleting gases, progress was at best "insufficient" to prevent further degradation or backsliding. Perhaps most ominously, it predicts the output of greenhouse gases, falling as of late, will reverse and rise by as much as 6 percent in the next decade.

There's limited pressure on politicians to reverse the trend. In Britain, Tony Blair is "running scared of the driving lobby," and backing away from promises to slow road construction, says environmental campaigner George Monbiot. "All governments have to show that they are at least as green as the other parties and they have all learned the language of environmental policy," says Tony Burton of the Council for the Protection of Rural England. "The trouble is that when environmental objectives clash with economic objectives, they still come off very poorly."

Green regulations don't always make sense, either. Germany now requires citizens to painstakingly sort garbage for recycling, though only a fraction of the sorted trash actually gets reused. After at least 300 major industrial accidents in Europe since 1984, the EEA says, many obvious lessons have still not been learned. As if to prove the point, in December hundreds of volunteers rushed unsolicited to the Brittany coast to help clean up oil from the wreck of the tanker Erika. Now, many are complaining that they were not provided protective clothing--or warned that heavy crude could cause cancer.

The Greens have been most successful in the north of Europe. In Stockholm, the water is now clean enough to drink straight out of nearby Malaren Lake, and "the end of the pipe problem just isn't a problem anymore," says Per Stenbeck of Greenpeace. Swedish greens worry about pollution mostly in other countries. To the south, French authorities are for the most part still stuck at the stage of studying environmental problems. In Italy, outdated emission controls allow moped owners to modify their engines for use with recycled airplane fuel, which delivers more power--and pollution. Rather than protest, residents of major Italian cities don surgical or gas masks when the air gets too foul to breathe. Greece is at least as lax: Athens will start to prohibit lead in gasoline as of next year. "Environmental action is just beginning in Greece," says environmentalist Carla Manolopoulou. And not an Earth Day too soon.

RE: Jet Fuel in a Moped! - Read last paragraph

.....Well...Daven....The article didn't say...Jet Fuel...It said 'airplane' fuel....And the two things are very different....Although you can buy both of them at an airport...... But neither one will make a stock moped make any more power..... WARNING !!!.......... Do not put Jet Fuel in any gasoline burning engine.... Jet Fuel is basically some parts of Europe its called parafin.... And it has an octane of about 72... which is way too low for gasoline engines.... It will cause major engine damage... I repeat....major engine damage.... if you can even get it to run....................................... However you can run your moped on the other fuel they sell at airports....but it costs almost twice as much as regular gas..... It is called 100LL ...or 100 octane low lead.... It will not make your stock moped any faster or more powerful....But if your engine is modified for racing it will work good as long as the weather isn't too hot.............................! ! ! ! Don't use Jet Fuel ! ! ! ! should understand that people who write newspapers or magazines usually don't know anything about engines.

RE: Jet Fuel in a Moped! - Read last paragraph

Surely you didn't think I was going to put that crap in my tank!? I got my fuel mixture down to a science and I am not about to make any modifications. I just thought it was an interesting article. Got your attention didn't it!

RE: Jet Fuel in a Moped! - Read last paragraph

..... No... I was warning anybody who might read your post and think "Jet Fuel" (kerosene) might be a good idea..... You have to be careful what you write... cuz some people don't know any better.

RE: Jet Fuel in a Moped! - Read last paragraph

allstatemoped /

I had a neighbor who accidentally (read idiot here) filled his car with kerosene. It never ran again. He rebuilt the engine thinking it was the problem, then wrecked it (again) by trying to start it without checking his fuel. He finally got around to draining the tank and dumped about 18 gallons of kerosene on to the ground. I guess my point is that, oh well I guess I didn't really have one, but the thread is interesting, and my story seemed at least a little relevant!

RE: Jet Fuel in a Moped! - Read last paragraph

Reeperette /

One thing i have used before (tho the mix used to be tricky) - was in a bike with an injection system that is empty (say, yer using pre-mix)...was a mixture of Cox409 Fuel (they run model airplanes on that, mind) mixed with yet more two cycle oil - it did work, and burned cleaner and lowered the ignition temps a hair.

Not any real difference in performance, save for extremes of weather such as humidity, cold or heat, and in those cases it was more reliable and ran a smidge better, also, the carbon/gunk/etc did not build up in the cylinder quite as fast, and spark plug life was greatly improved.

This was back in the days you had to buy Cox409 Fuel in tiny cans and mix it yourself, but nowadays the right hobby stores sell it by the gallon and pre-mixed.

I would not reccommend trying this unless you really, really, know what you are doing, and yes, it is a bit of work till you get the mix right for not much gain - but it was a neat idea, at the time.


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